Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment has been made of adequacy of the (a) support and (b) guidance available for those who are unable to access their e-visas.

The Home Office has a robust support model in place that strives to ensure that all people, including the most vulnerable, are properly supported to access their eVisa and use the View and Prove service:

We have delivered £4.4m of grant funding across 18 months to 72 voluntary and community sector organisations across the UK to support customers who needed help transitioning from a physical document to an eVisa.

People who need support can contact the UKVI Resolution Centre, which provides support via email and webchat to those creating their UKVI account, and telephone support to those using the online immigration status services. This includes supporting users through the online journey by:

o helping them to access or recover their account

o helping them to update their personal details

o sharing status on behalf of users if they are unable to do so themselves

Should anyone find themselves needing support with creating their UKVI account or getting access to their eVisa, the latest updates and guidance can be found on GOV.UK at: www.gov.uk/evisa.

Employers and landlords in England can use the Employer Checking Service (ECS) and Landlord Checking Service (LCS) to check the status of people who are having difficulty providing digital status evidence.

An Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) was completed on the first phase of the roll out of eVisas to EEA nationals on 9 November 2020, which built on the Policy Equality Statement (PES) for the EUSS which was produced in 2017 and published on the gov.uk website on 18 November 2020:

Policy equality statement: EU Settlement Scheme (accessible version) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).(opens in a new tab)

A separate EIA considering equalities issues in relation to the use of digital only right to work and rent checks was published on gov.uk in June 2022:

Digital only right to work and rent checks: equality impact assessment (accessible) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)(opens in a new tab)

We are also in the process of reviewing our eVisas EIA, setting out further analysis of the equalities issues to reflect the current stage in the roll out of eVisas, and we will continue to keep the issue under review.